


Scentsing Your Mate

by Zetal (Rodinia)



Series: YOI Omegaverse Week [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, M/M, Multi, Royalty AU, omegaverse AU, scent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 03:28:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14968136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodinia/pseuds/Zetal
Summary: Leo's parents have collected suitors for him.  Today, Leo has to choose.  He thought it would be hard, but never thought he'd find it impossible.





	Scentsing Your Mate

Being a royal omega sucked. Leo had been practically cloistered all his life, given a fair bit of education only because they needed to keep him occupied, only ever getting to see family and carefully chosen tutors and companions. Today, that would change. Today he would choose his mate.

As per tradition, suitors interested in him had sent or brought a shirt with their scent. Those shirts were now lined up on a long table, and Leo had to pick the one that smelled best to him. This was likely going to take some time.

Leo started by taking a deep sniff from the fire at the end of the table. Unlike normal fire, this one was magically treated to clear his nose rather than having a smell of its own. This first pass was mostly to familiarize himself with his options – he wasn’t going to reject or accept anything, this time, unless a scent stood out so much that it overwhelmed him.

The first shirt was… inoffensive. The only thing that really stood out was a scent of cooked pork, and a slight whiff of dog. Nothing special. The second shirt was better – mountains and fire and pine, and perhaps some adrenaline? It gave Leo a feeling of excitement. He scooted it a little bit forward. The third shirt smelled like ego, mostly, and Leo was tempted to throw it to the ground. Instead, he shoved it to the back of the table and went back to the scent-clearing fire.

The fourth shirt, Leo did drop. It’s not that he objected to smelling sex, he just objected to the idea of that being what his mate would smell like. It was possible it was a mistake, the shirt’s owner had had sex while wearing this shirt and not thought about that before submitting it, but still. There was another trip to the fire, just to be sure he was being fair to the remaining shirts.

He couldn’t really identify anything specific in the fifth shirt, but it smelled like drama, so he pushed it toward the back and moved on. The sixth shirt… oh, this one smelled _good_. Leo had never been, but the smell put him in mind of the beach, somehow. It smelled like sunshine and summertime and a nice breeze. This one went on the front edge. Only the fact that there were still four more shirts kept Leo from running out to his mom.

Once again, Leo cleared his nose, and then went to the seventh shirt. This one smelled nice, kind of fruity, a little perfumey. It was good, but not great. The eighth shirt was weird. Leo even went back to the scent-cleansing fire and came back to check again. The scent was just… clean. The ninth shirt, once again, caught him up in something he’d never really experienced but could imagine – a city. Even the normally-unpleasant scent of waste smelled good in this context, along with a cacophony of food scents, flowers, and smoke. This was going to be a very hard choice for him.

The final shirt smelled like roses and a bit of desperation. Leo was not interested. There were a couple he could rule out immediately, including this one, without regret. Shirts Two and Seven were harder to put aside, but Six and Nine had clearly established themselves as the winners. Deciding between them was going to be difficult.

Both held the promise of showing him things he’d never seen before. Both held the promise of happiness. There was no wrong choice between the two, but Leo couldn’t bring himself to choose based on nothing or chance.

 

His older brother, an alpha, came to check on him an hour later. “Leo? You okay?”

“No. I can’t decide. I’ve got it down to two, but I cannot pick one!” Leo held both shirts out. “What do you think?”

Ryan took a quick sniff at both and shrugged. “They both smell like alpha to me, dude. You’re the omega. Want me to get Mayra?”

“No. They’ll all smell different to her, anyway.” Leo ran a hand through his hair and slumped forward, head resting on the table. “What do I do? I can’t pick one!”

“Close your eyes.” Leo did as instructed, and suddenly his nose was on fire. He could hear Ryan laughing at him, but he couldn’t help it; he reached out and grabbed the shirts Ryan was holding up to his nose, pressing them in. “Okay then. Go clear your nose and then come with me.”

“But… I haven’t decided…” Leo protested, even as he obeyed, giving the shirts back to Ryan and going to the fire.

“Yeah, you have. You know sometimes alphas will share an omega, if the omega likes them both and they can make it work?”

Leo blinked. “No, Ryan, I did _not_ know that. How do we know these two would make it work?”

“If it wouldn’t, you’d have reacted badly to having their scents combined. Not like you were about to go into heat at the thought.” Ryan winked at Leo. “Besides, these two both came in person, and they’ve half got an official declaration of friendship between their houses drafted. One’s an only child, one’s a younger alpha, so it shouldn’t be a problem for the three of you. Ready to meet them?”

“Does it matter if I’m not?” Leo was so ready to meet the two alphas who smelled so good. He just didn’t want to appear as eager as he was; it wasn’t “proper”. He’d gladly embarrass himself, but embarrassing his parents? No. Not going to happen.

 

Of course, there was the waiting while the alphas or their representatives were assembled, so that the king could make the announcement. Leo took a quick look around the room, trying to guess who his alphas might be; no one really stood out, although he hoped the short one with freckles would be.

One by one, Ryan dismissed the suitors or representatives who had been rejected. Most of them took it well, which Leo was glad to see; scent-mating wasn’t personal, and yet, it was very personal. He was glad to be on this end of it, where all he’d had to do was wait to see who proposed; he couldn’t imagine going through proposal after proposal only to be rejected time and again. Even if his group had been abnormally large, which it wasn’t, the odds were bad that you would be the one chosen if it was one out of five.

The two remaining suitors looked at each other when they realized it was down to them, and moved together to hold each other’s hand. Leo was very pleased to see Freckle Boy was one of them; the other one had big dark eyes and something about him looked wrong right now, when he wasn’t smiling; he’d been smiling before and his entire face changed. Would he smile when the king made the announcement?

He did. Both alphas did, and hugged each other. Best Smile Ever was Phichit Chulanont, the one who smelled like an imagined beach, and Freckle Boy was Ji Guang Hong, the one who smelled like a city. Guang Hong and Phichit both hugged Leo as well. “Thank you for picking us. Picking Phichit makes this even better! I was worried you might get lonely, since I don’t have brothers or sisters, but if Phichit’s there too, that helps out a lot!” Guang Hong said.


End file.
